


Ludicity

by ATMachine (orphan_account)



Category: The Dig (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Multiple canons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 05:48:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9308123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ATMachine
Summary: The milk of kindness is a powerful drug.





	1. Into the Asteroid

**LUDICITY**

 

 _a_ Dig _fanfic by ATMachine_

 

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, the planet, or the intellectual property contained herein. Boston, Judy, and all the rest belong to LucasArts (and now Disney). I'm just borrowing them, and I don't want to get sued.

 

 

The following text will vary depending on your gameplay choices.

 

 **Gameplay Variant 1** assumes that you used the ashes in the machine.

 

 **Gameplay Variant 2** assumes you used the severed hand in the machine instead.

 

Now, wanderer... choose your path.


	2. From the Ashes, a Fire

He looked up at the machine, its central chamber glowing with a light brighter than anything terrestrial. The hatch at the top was vibrating ever so slightly and making a great din, but the panels which kept the tremendous energies sealed inside the translucent sphere remained firmly in place. He wondered if something had gone wrong – and, if so, what they could do about it.

At the same moment, Judy saw it too. She looked down at Boston and yelled, to make herself audible over the noise of the colliding atoms: “It’s stuck! I’m going to pry it open!”

“Be careful!” Low shouted back, by way of encouragement.

The words were as much for his sake as hers. Fear gripped his heart like a gauntlet of ice. He knew she could read the alien instructions where he could not, that she was more of an expert on this device than he would ever be. He wouldn’t be much help to her unless he knew what he was doing. She did, and he didn’t.

Judy left her post at the upper console, padded on bare feet up the maintenance walkway to the aperture at the top of the giant glowing sphere. She held on to the waistband of her orange NASA trousers with one hand as she went; the spares in the Pig had been too large for her, and threatened to fall down when she moved around.

Reaching the hatch, she bent down to open the panels, stuck fast with the age and grime of millennia beyond human ken. Low watched in silence as she pulled on the metal doors, at first with no success, and then—

An explosion blasted Judy off the walkway, sent her falling twenty feet down to the level where Low was standing. He ran to her side, the stone floor echoing under his magboots.

Overhead, bright energy flowed freely upward out of the atom collider. A giant crystal in the room’s ceiling refracted the energy out through the great window into the open air, toward the hub of the light bridges high above the central island.

Judy lay unmoving, barely breathing, where she had fallen on the stony ground of the laboratory. When Low reached her he could see that her eyes, once brilliant as sapphires, were now blank gray orbs: the blast had blinded her. Blood trickled from her nose and mouth and ears.

She was dying.

Judy heard him approaching. She twitched her shoulders, trying to sit up, and failed. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Low knelt beside her, took her hand in his. He couldn’t help her, had no tools to relieve her agonies: they’d used the last of the life crystals to mix the fluid that powered the machine.

He would stand vigil as she died. She deserved this, at least. It was the least he could do, the shabbiest thanks imaginable for the gift she had given him: a way to talk to the aliens who had built this Hell, to ask—no, _beg_ —them for a starship that could take him home.

Or, if that failed, to see if there was someone else in the “space between spaces” that would actually be willing to help a sad sack of flesh and blood like him.

_Flesh and blood…_

He remembered the milky engine fluid they’d used to kickstart the Eye machine, how they’d distilled it from their supply of red and green crystals. They’d had more than enough fluid, and he still had a half-full flask of it in his pocket. But the machine also needed a sample of organic matter to function: he’d fed it Toshi’s ashes, which promptly vaporized.

The thought occurred to him now: what if the machine functioned like the crystals on a grand scale? Would the engine fluid, mixed from both kinds of crystals, be capable of resurrecting a human in the same way as the crystals themselves?

Low had no idea if it would work in such a situation. He also had no idea if it _wouldn’t_ work.

There was only one way to find out.

He squeezed Judy’s hand. “Hold on,” he told her. “This will ease the pain.” He did not know whether it was a lie. He hoped it wasn’t.

Low pulled out the metal flask from his back pocket, opened it, and tipped the contents down Robbins’ throat. When he made sure she’d swallowed it, he stepped back and waited. At first nothing happened.

Then Robbins began to glow.

A pale green glow, unlike the shades of pink and purple Low had seen before when using the crystals: it was strange and eerie and resembled the radioactive monsters from the movies he’d seen on TV as a kid.

The force of the fluid’s action brought Robbins to her feet, then levitated her off the ground, putting her through a strange balletic motion set to invisible music. Brighter and brighter she glowed, until it hurt Low’s eyes to look at her. He cast his hand in front of his face and turned away, shielding himself from the light.

Finally the glow subsided, and Robbins’ feet returned to the ground. Low turned to look at her again, expecting to see Judy whole and healed up, at least outwardly. Brink and Toshi had gone crazy from improper resurrections, but even then there hadn’t been any physical signs of their impairment.

The sight that met his eyes was _not_ what he expected.

Judy’s hair and skin were strangely white, as white as snow or salt. Her tank top had been all but shredded by the energy blast, and its tatters gave further proof that her skin was albinic white everywhere Low could see. Her eyes, too, were white: whatever other injuries the crystals had healed, she was still blind.

No doubt Ludger would’ve had an appropriate quote, if he were around. Maybe something from Shakespeare? _“Not dead but suffered a sea-change/Into something rich and strange…”_

Low’s reverie didn’t last long. “Is there something on my face, Boston? That fucking machine blinded me, so if there’s dirt somewhere, I’ve got no idea where to clean it off.”

“Judy… !” Her name came out of his throat almost as more of a croak than a word.

“Was that the starter fluid? The stuff we mixed from the crystals?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t sure it’d work—”

“Good thinking. You saved my life.” She smiled at him. “But you still haven’t told me if I spilled any on my chin.”

“…Nah. It’s just good to see you again.”

“That makes one of us.” She swept a hand in the general direction of the window. “So what’s the deal with the machine? Did it work?”

Boston turned his attention to the giant opening in the wall, through which he could see the landing of the aetherium spire doorway, and beyond that the central island. Where the five light bridges had met, there had previously been a ring-shaped walkway linking the several strands, like a hub at the center of a spoked wheel.

The ring was gone. In its place was a sphere of light, pulsing with brilliant energy. It was what you might get if you rotated the original ring end over end 360 degrees, leaving afterimages of light so the single ring was multiplied a thousandfold, adding up to a perfect sphere.

_That must be the Eye_ , he though. “Yeah. I guess it did.”

“Well, let’s get going, then. You’ll have to lead me up there. I’m blind as a bat, and if I stub my toe on a rock or something, I could fall to my death. Again.”

“No problem. Come on, let’s go. I think it’s time we have a few words with God.”

They set off, through the great window onto the landing of the aetherium spire, up the zigzagging staircase to the aetherium door, at last reaching the springing point of the light bridge.

Low stepped onto the light beam, then steadied Robbins as she clambered on herself. Judy lurched for a moment, as the flickering light eddies swirled around her ankles, before steadying herself. “Ooh, that tickles.”

Hand in hand, the two of them proceeded down the light bridge, toward the pulsing surface of the sphere of light, suspended in the air over the mouth of Hell.

Out of the darkness.

And into eternity.


	3. The Multitudinous Seas Incarnadine

He looked up at the machine, its central chamber glowing with a light brighter than anything terrestrial. The hatch at the top was vibrating ever so slightly and making a great din, but the panels which kept the tremendous energies sealed inside the translucent sphere remained firmly in place. He wondered if something had gone wrong – and, if so, what they could do about it.

At the same moment, Judy saw it too. She looked down at Boston and yelled, to make herself audible over the noise of the colliding atoms: “It’s stuck! I’m going to pry it open!”

“Be careful!” Low shouted back, by way of encouragement.

The words were as much for his sake as hers. Fear gripped his heart like a gauntlet of ice. He knew she could read the alien instructions where he could not, that she was more of an expert on this device than he would ever be. He wouldn’t be much help to her unless he knew what he was doing. She did, and he didn’t.

Judy left her post at the upper console, padded on bare feet up the maintenance walkway to the aperture at the top of the giant glowing sphere. She held on to the waistband of her orange NASA trousers with one hand as she went; the spares in the Pig had been too large for her, and threatened to fall down when she moved around.

Reaching the hatch, she bent down to open the panels, stuck fast with the age and grime of millennia beyond human ken. Low watched in silence as she pulled on the metal doors, at first with no success, and then—

An explosion blasted Judy off the walkway, sent her falling twenty feet down to the level where Low was standing. He ran to her side, the stone floor echoing under his magboots.

Overhead, bright energy flowed freely upward out of the atom collider. A giant crystal in the room’s ceiling refracted the energy out through the great window into the open air, toward the hub of the light bridges high above the central island.

Judy lay unmoving, barely breathing, where she had fallen on the stony ground of the laboratory. When Low reached her he could see that her eyes, once brilliant as sapphires, had been melted from their sockets: the blast had blinded her. Blood trickled from her nose and mouth and ears.

She was dying.

Judy heard him approaching. She twitched her shoulders, trying to sit up, and failed. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Low knelt beside her, took her hand in his. He couldn’t help her, had no tools to relieve her agonies: they’d used the last of the life crystals to mix the fluid that powered the machine.

He would stand vigil as she died. She deserved this, at least. It was the least he could do, the shabbiest thanks imaginable for the gift she had given him: a way to talk to the aliens who had built this Hell, to ask—no, _beg_ —them for a starship that could take him home.

Or, if that failed, to see if there was someone else in the “space between spaces” that would actually be willing to help a sad sack of flesh and blood like him.

_Flesh and blood…_

He remembered the milky engine fluid they’d used to kickstart the Eye machine, how they’d distilled it from their supply of red and green crystals. They’d had more than enough fluid, and he still had a half-full flask of it in his pocket. But the machine also needed a sample of organic matter to function: he’d fed it Brink’s severed hand, which promptly vaporized.

The thought occurred to him now: what if the machine functioned like the crystals on a grand scale? Would the engine fluid, mixed from both kinds of crystals, be capable of resurrecting a human in the same way as the crystals themselves?

Low had no idea if it would work in such a situation. He also had no idea if it _wouldn’t_ work.

There was only one way to find out.

He squeezed Judy’s hand. “Hold on,” he told her. “This will ease the pain.” He did not know whether it was a lie. He hoped it wasn’t.

Low pulled out the metal flask from his back pocket, opened it, and tipped the contents down Robbins’ throat. When he made sure she’d swallowed it, he stepped back and waited. At first nothing happened.

Then Robbins began to glow.

A pale green glow, unlike the shades of pink and purple Low had seen before when using the crystals: it was strange and eerie and resembled the radioactive monsters from the movies he’d seen on TV as a kid.

The force of the fluid’s action brought Robbins to her feet, then levitated her off the ground, putting her through a strange balletic motion set to invisible music. Brighter and brighter she glowed, until it hurt Low’s eyes to look at her. He cast his hand in front of his face and turned away, shielding himself from the light.

Finally the glow subsided, and Robbins’ feet returned to the ground. Low turned to look at her again, expecting to see Judy whole and healed up, at least outwardly. Brink and Toshi had gone crazy from improper resurrections, but even then there hadn’t been any physical signs of their impairment.

The sight that met his eyes was _not_ what he expected.

Judy’s skin was strangely white, as white as snow or salt. Her tank top had been all but shredded by the energy blast, and its tatters gave further proof that her skin was albinic white everywhere Low could see. Her head was hairless, and her eye sockets, though cleansed of blood, were dark and empty: whatever other injuries the crystals had healed, she was still blind.

No doubt Ludger would’ve had an appropriate quote, if he were around. Maybe something from Shakespeare? _“Not dead but suffered a sea-change/Into something rich and strange…”_

Low’s reverie didn’t last long. “Is there something on my face, Boston? That fucking machine blinded me, so if there’s dirt somewhere, I’ve got no idea where to clean it off.”

“Judy… !” Her name came out of his throat almost as more of a croak than a word.

“Was that the starter fluid? The stuff we mixed from the crystals?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t sure it’d work—”

“Good thinking. You saved my life.” She smiled at him. “But you still haven’t told me if I spilled any on my chin.”

“…Nah. It’s just good to see you again.”

“That makes one of us.” She swept a hand in the general direction of the window. “So what’s the deal with the machine? Did it work?”

Boston turned his attention to the giant opening in the wall, through which he could see the landing of the aetherium spire doorway, and beyond that the central island. Where the five light bridges had met, there had previously been a ring-shaped walkway linking the several strands, like a hub at the center of a spoked wheel.

The ring was gone. In its place was a sphere of light, pulsing with brilliant energy. It was what you might get if you rotated the original ring end over end 360 degrees, leaving afterimages of light so the single ring was multiplied a thousandfold, adding up to a perfect sphere.

_That must be the Eye_ , he though. “Yeah. I guess it did.”

“Well, let’s get going, then. You’ll have to lead me up there. I’m blind as a bat, and if I stub my toe on a rock or something, I could fall to my death. Again.”

“No problem. Come on, let’s go. I think it’s time we have a few words with God.”

They set off, through the great window onto the landing of the aetherium spire, up the zigzagging staircase to the aetherium door, at last reaching the springing point of the light bridge.

Low stepped onto the light beam, then steadied Robbins as she clambered on herself. Judy lurched for a moment, as the flickering light eddies swirled around her ankles, before steadying herself. “Ooh, that tickles.”

Hand in hand, the two of them proceeded down the light bridge, toward the pulsing surface of the sphere of light, suspended in the air over the mouth of Hell.

Out of the darkness.

And into eternity.


	4. The Eye

**Author’s Notes**

 

This story is based on the final puzzles in the 1993 version of LucasArts’ _The Dig_. Obviously I’ve taken a little artistic license; how likely are you to see the word “fuck” in a LucasArts game, after all?

It’s not explained directly in the fic itself, but Judy’s original set of astronaut clothes was lost in the spider attack.

Also, the puzzle about mixing the crystals together to create the engine fluid for the Eye machine is a deliberate inversion of the orichalcum-bead forging puzzle in _Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis_.

 

_ATMachine_

_Friday, 13 January 2017_


End file.
